Happy birthday, honey

Aside from a football autographed by the Denver Broncos‘ rookie quarterback, Tim Tebow, the best thing to happen to the Epilepsy Foundation of Colorado was entrepreneur Tom Gordon’s $100,000 gift to be used for programs serving young people with epilepsy.

Gordon made the donation in honor of his wife Brooke’s birthday and presented the check at La Dolce Vita, a fundraising gala held last Saturday at RedLine Gallery. It also was announced that Gordon has pledged an additional $50,000 a year to the foundation for the next 10 years.

“The Epilepsy Foundation has been very important to Brooke,” Tom Gordon said, “and we are very fortunate to be able to give something back.”

Chaired by Candy Palazzo, La Dolce Vita was a benefit for the Jason Fleishman Summer Camp, a week-long summer experience for young people with epilepsy. It is a memorial to attorney Craig Fleishman’s late son, Jason. Fleishman was at La Dolce Vita with his wife, Layne, and 12-year-old son, Gavin.

The 250 guests also heard Alexis Perlmutter describe her life with epilepsy; her father, U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, was at the gala with his friend, Nancy Henderson.

Gourmet Fine Catering provided the buffet supper that was enjoyed by such friends of the foundation as Judge Jack Berryhill and his wife, Karen; attorney Doug Tisdale with girlfriend Katie Carrol, director of communications for the Better Business Bureau of Southern Colorado; Mary White, the president and CEO of Swedish Medical Center, and her husband, Terry Thon; John and Lydia Woodward; Rob and Kathy Klugman; Craig Fleishman’s law partner, Steve Shapiro, and his wife, Mona; and Kathy Ashenfelter, president of the Epilepsy Foundation board.

Study after study has shown that when it comes to charitable fundraisers, Denver has more per capita than any comparably sized city in the nation. Joanne Davidson has been covering them for The Denver Post since 1985, coming here from her native California where she'd spent the previous seven years as San Francisco bureau chief for U.S. News & World Report magazine.